MGT Only: The problem with Mongoose Traveller?
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I dunno... there were a lot of licensees and fanzines, and quality varied.
Garyius2003
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Supplement Four
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I think he's speaking of just the main stuff--the GDW stuff.
No question about that then.
I guess Mongoose do things a different way, and they allow fans to fill in gaps. Something GDW perhaps didn't have access to back in the day. That's ok; otherwise some stuff would never be written (Deneb sector)... assuming of course that the material is good enough.
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I kinda see what he's saying. Instead of a group of employees, tuned into every aspect of the game they are creating, with an agenda, creating stuff for a game vs. a fan being tapped to write for that game.
Not all of the stuff written by fans is bad. Some of it is quite good. But, fans have a different take from each other--not the unified vision of a company's professional product.
Many of us on this forum have written professionally for games. I've been asked a couple of times, but I decided against it at that time. 2300 is written by a fan, Colin. I love my Mongoose Conan game, but much of it was written by a fan (and not all of the supplements are of superior quality). Heck, I remember when MJD was on the Traveller mailing list--he e-mailed me once after I posted a Traveller story that I had written, citing that he wanted to get into writing for Traveller (and a few years later, his name was on T20).
I have felt what the poster was saying: That the industry has lost something now that the fans are writing more and more of the supplements.
Well... yes. They knew what they wrote and they didn't step on each other. So content was orthogonal, or extensible (basic chargen - expanded chargen, basic trade - merchant prince, basic starships - high guard... and so on).
I guess I would say that their agenda was generally uniform. They followed one plan.
But even here, production quality with GDW authors varied according to their strengths, and I suppose Marc really didn't write good adventures -- even tho he wrote some of them, and I STILL like them, they weren't really adventures, more like frameworks.
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They were written from a different gaming point of view on what an adventure is, that's all. I think many of us define an "adventure" from what we saw TSR do back in the day. But, really, I don't think the GDW adventures were any less of an adventure--just a different game philosophy where the GM had more creative input into his game rather than using the stock, published adventure style that TSR used.
Yes. And no. By that I mean I think you're right of course, except explicitly with Marc's adventures. I believe this is because Marc can so easily inject narrative and situation into any mold, so all he had to do was describe the particular "molds" and thus anyone could dress them up in any way whatsoever. So his adventures tended to be about the location, and not about the plot.
But, I think many or most people aren't that good at doing that.
I dunno, they could develop the Gateway Domain for 1105. Update the region, making sure to update or rewrite some of the worlds to account for development (such as the Sydite Empire, STRONGLY suggesting that the homeworld's Tech Level be brought up to 13 or 14), and having a greater distribution for technology.
They could even rerelease the T20 stuff, expanding on the Solomani Rim War - though as before, I'd want them to rewrite the Sydites for greater technology levels (same for a bunch of habitable planets in the Imperium - make sure that the basic TL in the Imperium starts at TL 8 and is usually TL 10).
GypsyComet
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I would say that Mongoose can move to another year whenever they and Marc agree to do so (I don't know if there is a license constraint), but since the 1105 era has already had its most important event, the Fifth Frontier War, covered by magazines and a game that are still available (from Marc), I see less point in a moving timeframe. Getting more of the setting described is worthwhile, given the wild reactions early efforts got from the fanbase back in the 80s, but takes time to write.
In a sense, didn't MgT expand sideways?
All versions of Traveller that I can remember, always talked somewhere about how the rules COULD be used to create a world from your favorite book or movie. MgT decided to take their own advise and released Judge Dredd and Hammers Slammers and the 2300 reboot (whatever it was called) with the MgT game mechanics.
I agree expanding the post TNE timeline could have been nice, but Mongoose chose to grow in another direction (which I think has worked well for them financially).
All versions of Traveller that I can remember, always talked somewhere about how the rules COULD be used to create a world from your favorite book or movie. MgT decided to take their own advise and released Judge Dredd and Hammers Slammers and the 2300 reboot (whatever it was called) with the MgT game mechanics.
I agree expanding the post TNE timeline could have been nice, but Mongoose chose to grow in another direction (which I think has worked well for them financially).
GypsyComet
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Regularizing 1248, then hopping forward another century or more, would be the next obvious steps in that direction, but that may also be T5 territory.
nats
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Ooo no not at all!
I personally think by far the best thing Mongoose could do is take all of their many rules and unify them all into one large hardback referees handbook along the same lines as D&Ds rulebooks - a book for just administering the game's rules around a table. And then produce a ships/equipment/weapons/vehicles tech book and a chargen/ship/worlds/animals/encounters creation book. All the stuff is there but because of the fact that there hasnt been any unifying force its all too bitty. It all needs pulling together. 3-4 large volumes costing around £40-50 each. Who here wouldnt buy every one? I know I would.
And then in parallel with this set of volumes, a new ongoing series of new well written, well illustrated, imaginative, coherent adventure booklets retailing for around £10 each - one every 2 months.
There is plenty of development room if they start thinking proactively! But someone there needs to grasp the Traveller line by the horns. It would be a big project to pull the Traveller line back on course for the next few years and I dont think there is anyone there is willing to do it or suitable to do it - maybe a good project for Gareth Hanrahan? Or maybe Marc Miller! Everything Traveller 5 should have been and wasnt.
To round off my thoughts about fan work vs professionals I do think that there is a place for fan input. They can advise the publisher on what they want to see, on where the gaps are, they can proofread and errata spot very well, and they can of course have a say on new rules. But they shouldnt write the thing. Because everyones view is different. Give a book to five people and they will produce five completely different products. The deciding and authoritive voice of somebody dedicated and knowledgable about Traveller, like Marc, is just not there in Mongoose. But Marc arguably cant do Traveller justice on his own. Maybe what we really need is a teaming up between Mongoose and Marc Miller!
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I think T5's aim is further afield. If so, then 1348 might be interesting.
Fans vs Pros...
A lot of game materials are written by fans, and a lot of problems are caused by fans who don't grasp that when you're hired to write a product you can't write it as a fan. You have to at least act like a pro. You have to actually deliver the product, and it has to be what the client wants, not what you want the client to publish.
Some fan-writers mature into pros, and some always remain raving fanboys but deliver work like pros - there's really no difference. The problem occurs when you have fans writing as fans. Most flake as soon as it's difficult. Indeed, I used to get rid of countless apporaches at QLI by saying 'hey, good idea, shoot me an outline'.
Yes, really. To me, that would be an invite to put the project forward and maybe get hired. To the vast majority of people who wrote in telling what they were gunna write it was too much trouble. I have little time for 'gunners' of this sort.
My perspective is perhaps unusual, in that I was writing for money long before I got involved with writing for Traveller, so I came to the game as a pro who liked the game rather than a fan who was gunna write.
A lot of game materials are written by fans, and a lot of problems are caused by fans who don't grasp that when you're hired to write a product you can't write it as a fan. You have to at least act like a pro. You have to actually deliver the product, and it has to be what the client wants, not what you want the client to publish.
Some fan-writers mature into pros, and some always remain raving fanboys but deliver work like pros - there's really no difference. The problem occurs when you have fans writing as fans. Most flake as soon as it's difficult. Indeed, I used to get rid of countless apporaches at QLI by saying 'hey, good idea, shoot me an outline'.
Yes, really. To me, that would be an invite to put the project forward and maybe get hired. To the vast majority of people who wrote in telling what they were gunna write it was too much trouble. I have little time for 'gunners' of this sort.
My perspective is perhaps unusual, in that I was writing for money long before I got involved with writing for Traveller, so I came to the game as a pro who liked the game rather than a fan who was gunna write.
Garyius2003
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